Out before dawn. The trees rock and talk in loud whispers. Orion appears through a hole in the clouds, dark armor glittering.
stars
October 5, 2024
Before dawn, before the nearby quarry starts up, you can almost hear the stars glittering. In a dark enough sky, it turns out that Orion has a whole nest of stars for a head.
February 16, 2024
Impossible to distinguish the sound of the ridgetop wind from the rumble of freight trains below. The stars fade. A small high cloud turns pink.
February 7, 2024
Cold and still all the way to the stars, which are just beginning to fade. A barred owl calls once. The hesitant footfalls of a deer coming down to drink.
August 31, 2023
The full moon sits on the horizon, serenaded by cold crickets. Overhead, the Pleiades wink out one by one, leaving Jupiter alone in the crown of a locust.
August 30, 2023
The last stars gutter in the dawn light. Down-hollow, a juvenile whippoorwill practices its song—only half there.
February 8, 2023
An hour before sunrise, the yard is flooded with moonlight for a few moments, till the rift in the clouds drifts on to uncover a sliver of dawn sky, the last few stars.
November 1, 2022
Clouds selectively erasing the stars at dawn. A strong inversion layer: traffic noise from the interstate mingles with barred owl calls.
October 7, 2022
Dawn. I watch the stars fade then brighten again, as a thin veil of cloud I hadn’t noticed moves off like a lizard’s third eyelid.
September 20, 2022
A clear dawn sky, with the crescent moon like Orion’s boomerang just missing Castor and Pollux. The widely scattered chirps of migrating birds.
October 28, 2021
Mercury rises just as the stars begin to fade. A jet flies under it. A lone goose flies over it. I look away and lose it in the dawn sky.
October 16, 2021
The last star blinks out just as rain begins to tap on the roof. A spring pepper calls. Dawn begins to seem like a possibility.
October 1, 2021
Cold and clear. Stars fade as the ground fog grows, partly lit by the crescent moon, partly by the dawn.
September 6, 2021
In the dark of the moon, the luminance of stars. From town, a wailing of fire sirens, their literally compelling music an eerie, out-of-sync duet.